Reading for the First Time

Since I have lived here, the YOU New Testament has been finished and dedicated.  It is so amazing to have His Word in the language of the people; but the NT is less than half the canon, less than half of what God wants to say to the YOU people.  As my language has improved, I have been able to start helping with Old Testament translation.  My job is to do testing.  The translator do the hard work of working with the original languages, comparing them with modern translations of other Turkic Central Asian languages, and producing a readable copy.  I take the rough copy of the text to my friends’ houses and record their responses to it.  Most of it is taking special notes on grammar, spelling, word usage and understanding.

This semester we have worked on 1 Samuel and Ruth.  I have four friend s who are willing to do testing.  Each of them had very different responses to the Word.  One of my friends have been concerned that her daughter, who has been married for two years, still does not have a baby.  When she read of the how Hannah prayed and asked to get pregnant and how God blessed her with the birth of Samuel, my friend was inspired.  She asked if God really hears when we pray for things like this.  We had a wonderful conversation about prayer and since them have been able to spend a lot more time praying together.  She has even been encouraged to see how He answers. 

 

I am often reminded of what a professor in college use to say “every time you crack the spine, you come face to face with GOD” While the recording of grammatical errors may be tedious at time, there women are being exposed to the Holy word; they are coming face to face with God for the first time.  While none of them have professed faith yet, they see this book as holy, and know their people need to have it available to read.